Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

The final full moon of Winter 2017: the Worm Moon {Native Americans} or Storm Moon {Pagan Rites} or Lenten Moon {Christianity}. Also known as the Seed Moon or Chaste Moon. This is the final moon of Winter 2017 and the last full moon before the Spring Equinox. Tonight is also the time that Daylight Saving Time ends in most states of the U.S… returning time and hours to their natural cycle and us to a more harmonious rhythm. The days will be longer thanks to moving the clock ahead one hour -in the UK this is called “Summer Time”. This is the moon of nature’s rebirth from the dark winter months; its meaning is new, fresh starts.

The Prophet described iman, or faith,as such: “Faith is to acknowledge with the heart, to voice with the tongue, and to act with the limbs,” (Chittick 6).

This outlines the hierarchy of bodily domains that human beings consist of: the heart, signifying innermost awareness; the tongue which articulates and expresses; and one’s limbs, the source of action.

The art of poetry incorporates all three of these, for one cannot compose a poem without the cognizance of the heart, the use of speech or the physical use of limbs to write out the words.

Poetry channels the three spheres of the body so that awareness, thought and activity fuse to create one product.

And, suddenly, you are gazing at the eternal sublime. Venice’s borders are the dream realms. This is a city that starts on water and ends in the soul. Venice is a portal between reality and myth. A city that is real, but also impossible. My little cousin declared, at ten years old, that ‘this is the most beautiful city in the whole world.’ In no other country man-made and natural Beauty is so entrenched with the national psyche and identity. Beauty is elevated as the greatest national virtue, privilege and asset. Beauty is Italy’s doctrine and her true religion. We are, after all, Il Bel Paese.
Venezia, Italia, January 1, 2017.

‘There is still one of which you never speak.’
Marco Polo bowed his head.
‘Venice,’ the Khan said.
Marco smiled. ‘What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?’
The emperor did not turn a hair. ‘And yet I have never heard you mention that name.’
And Polo said: ‘Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.’

Dark days here in California.
Days of mourning, but also poetry, catharsis, resolve for Resistance.

The Sun broke through the clouds today.

Words, thoughts, and memories flowed and something beautiful is emerging from the summer blush, the gentle nights, the dawns of Bahia de Los Angeles down in the peninsula.

The blood and ink spilled on the battlegrounds of a war lost before it began.

Red like the heart, yellow like the fire, orange as the light.

Some days all of this will make sense. The humbleness of things not going your way, not going as predicted.

For now huddle with your familiars, write manifestos, memorize lines of poetry

To leave as flowers as you bid your adieu.

In the end nothing mattered, not eloquence, preparedness, not even expertise.

It boiled down, as it always boils

down

to

emotion.

In love, in war, in politics.

These scars will become constellations.

…

I recently switched to an IPhone.

I was always an Android/PC person, but did it all for the camera (and the IPhone 7 larger screen, which brings it closer to a tablet). Today after some research I downloaded ProCreate, a painting and layering app and Tayasui Sketching, a drawing and watercolor app. I’m looking forward to exploring them with my Sensu brush. The layers aspect of ProCreate pushes this app beyond what I was used to with Paint Commander, my Android painting app. If I don’t sound as my usually excited self is because I’m still numb.

The spontaneous construct above was an experiment with ProCreate inspired by Rothko, some photographs I took in September in Baja California, the recent elections and the high-strung feeling running through social media- especially related to some alarming episodes of intolerance already happening.
I guess things have to fall apart before they are made anew, and I guess the heart has to break in a myriad of pieces to become a mosaic, a kaleidoscope. This was the autumn of earthquake faults and fractures, of buildings and people.

There is a Japanese custom of repairing broken antique vases with gold, making the wound not only visible, but the whole more precious for having being shattered.

I was dead then alive. Weeping then laughing. The power of love came into me and I became fierce like a lion then … then tender like the evening star.

SketchBloom on Instagram #love

The Sun, the Moon, and on there being no abstracts in life. Pencil, ink, watercolor on 4″X5″ canvas.2009

Waiting for Godot | Static Head. Digital Collage. May 5th, 2010

Collage, Pilot Pen on Paper

Pilot Pen on Paper. November 2009

Coffee Carrier (delle). Graphite on paper. Kuwait. January 2010

Twomoons Wax Proof-modeled after concept sketch

The funambulist. Ink drawing + digital collage. August 2011.

Ink on tracing paper. Kuwait, January 2010. The scene at the bottom is what I saw-or decided to see- at The Avenues, the most popular malla in Kuwait City. There is nothing like seeing photography and drawings from a trip abroad to make you realize all reality is subjective, and we choose to see what we want to. We just don’t realize it in our own backyard.